MEDICAL.
Emily Dalton.—We thank you for your letter, but we must remind you that the preparation that cured you is by no means likely to be of equal value to others. If the remedy that you used is one that is not commonly employed for that purpose, we may be almost certain that it would be totally useless in another case. Most unexpected things do happen in medicine, and it requires a long time to decide whether a drug has any good effect, even though it may have apparently cured one or two persons. You are hardly likely to have discovered any new drug, and most of the medicines used in England, whether in the pharmacopœia or not, have been exhaustively studied. Those drugs which are not official are not given a place in the pharmacopœia, either because they are of insufficient value or because they have not yet been sufficiently studied. The reason why patent medicines and advertised nostrums are not given a place in our official list of drugs is either, as is most commonly the case, they are useless or inferior to preparations already in the pharmacopœia, or because they are simply time-honoured prescriptions which have been stolen and patented for running a company with, and charging thirteenpence halfpenny for what can be got for a penny! You must also remember that using drugs, with the action of which you are not familiar, is indeed dealing with edged tools, which may do great good if properly handled, but which can work disaster if wrongly applied.
"Not Bad."—You are suffering from the nervous and physical depression which is a constant symptom of anæmia. That you are anæmic is perfectly obvious from your account. If you pay attention to what we are going to tell you, we feel certain that you will soon get better. First read the three articles on diet and digestion which appeared in the Girl's Own Paper in February 1897, December 1897, and September 1898. Then turn to page 384 of last year's volume and read the answer which describes the treatment of anæmia. When you have read those papers, then read what follows here. Give up the cold bath in the morning and do not return to it till you are completely well again. In its place you may take a warm bath before going to bed. Pay great attention to your digestion by observing all the rules laid down in the articles above mentioned. Take a walk regularly every day. As regards drugs, you must guard carefully against constipation, which is the chief cause of anæmia. A teaspoonful of liquorice powder, or an aloes and nux vomica pill, may be taken occasionally for this purpose. Tonics are the greatest bane of modern medicine, and you will do well to fight shy of them altogether. Iron, taken as a blood-former, but not as a tonic, is invaluable for anæmia. You should begin with a small dose of a mild preparation. A five-grain "Bland's" pill taken three times a day after meals is a good way of taking iron. It is the rule for persons with anæmia to get stout and not to become thin, as one would, a priori, have expected.
"Jessie."—Your deafness is, almost for certain, due to wax. That you are very subject to sore throats, and that you usually breathe through your mouth, are perhaps against this opinion, but everything else is in favour of it. Syringe out your ears, or get some careful friend to do it for you. Before syringing out your ears read the article "All about the ear" which appeared in this magazine October 1897. If the syringing is properly done you will recover your hearing immediately. It may take an hour to efficiently syringe out an ear.
"Minnie Steward."—Your deafness is unquestionably due to wax. Read what we said to "Jessie."
Anxious One.—We think that you will find the cause of your symptoms in your spectacles. Did you have your eyes examined by a medical man, or did you go to an oculist and choose the pair that suited you best? We guess that you did the latter, and if our surmise is correct, your symptoms are very easily accounted for. Your eyes evidently have different refractive powers, that is, they need different glasses. The spectacles kept by oculists, or, rather, opticians, have both glasses of equal power, so that you could not get a pair of spectacles to suit your own case unless you had them made for you. You say your "other eye is defective." By this do you mean that you cannot use that eye for working, or that it squints? In either case it would be practically useless, so that your "bad eye" has to do all the work, and is consequently overworked, becomes sore, and gives you headaches. If it is not exactly suited by the lens in front of it, it is quite capable of incapacitating you altogether. Go to an ophthalmic surgeon and get a prescription for glasses for each eye separately. Take the card to the best optician you know and have the glasses made for you. We know that this will be rather expensive, but it is necessary if you wish to keep your sight.
An Old Friend of the "G.O.P."—We advise you not to use lemons for your hair, for though we do not think that they would do much harm, they are not likely to do any good. Try a hairwash of rosemary or quinine, or use a pomade containing cantharides.
Slight Deafness (An answer to "Jessie," "Deffee," "An Unhappy One," "Minnie Steward," and "Queen").—We are much pleased that our answer to "A Constant Reader" has been the cause of so many of our readers laying their troubles before us. As the five correspondents whom we are now answering have understood the absolute necessity of supplying us with information about their ills before we can give them a definite answer, and as all have answered the thirteen points which it is necessary to know before discussing the treatment of deafness, we will be able to give them much more lucid replies than is possible in most cases of the kind when correspondents merely ask us for "a cure for deafness."
"Deffee" has given us "a poser," for her answers to our thirteen queries seem rather to indicate a combination of unhealthy conditions rather than a single complaint. There is a great amount of information in her report which suggests wax. As the treatment for this condition is perfectly simple, she should try this first. A person who "scarcely knows what a sore throat means" is hardly likely to have suffered much from it. There are certain passages in her letter which strongly suggest that the chief cause of her deafness is hardening and stiffening of the drums of her ears from catarrh of the nose and eustachian tube. We advise her to get an "atomiser" and thoroughly spray her nose and throat with a solution of menthol in paraleine (1 in 8) three times a day. We hardly like to give an opinion as to the ultimate result.
"An Unhappy One" would do best to go to a hospital as she suggests. The cause of her deafness is probably catarrh.
"Queen."—Your letter was most interesting, but we fear that we can hold out no hope of your ever recovering your hearing. You are to be congratulated upon having recovered at all from so frightful an accident, which is nearly always fatal. Your left auditory nerve was torn through by the fracture of your skull. It is an exceedingly soft nerve, and we have never heard of its recovery from division. This is probably because the nerve is always more or less lacerated as well as torn across.